‘Defiant devil’ became
fierce conservationist

By DOUGLASS K. DANIEL
THE Associated Press

Published: October 6, 2013;Last modified: October 6, 2013 08:28AM

Irony alert: The man often credited with saving the buffalo from extinction began his crusade by killing 20 of the furry beasts. It had taken five weeks to find even a handful of buffalo in Montana in the fall of 1886, their numbers down from the millions to the hundreds after decades of unregulated hunting for economic gain.

William T. Hornaday wasn’t seeking meat or fur or even trophies — well, not exactly. He was the chief taxidermist for the U.S. National Museum, a branch of the Smithsonian Institution, and needed specimens. The hunt led Hornaday to write a book decrying the buffalo’s fate and to help create preserves. His efforts, and those of others, kept the buffalo roaming into the new century.

Hornaday came to believe that the extinction of the buffalo was not inevitable. “On the contrary,” writes biographer Gregory J. Dehler, “Hornaday maintained that something better could and should have been done to accommodate the advance of civilization with the buffalo’s right to existence.” As Dehler notes, Hornaday applied that view to the fur seal and other endangered species as he campaigned on their behalf.

“The Most Defiant Devil” is Dehler’s noteworthy chronicle of the life and career of this key figure in the conservation movement. He reveals a fascinating American, a man of vision and conviction whose stubbornness and hubris won him allies and enemies among lawmakers, potential patrons and fellow conservationists. He once described himself as an unrepentant sinner in regard to his past as a killer of animals and “the most defiant devil that ever came to town.”

Hornaday’s advocacy for animal conservation found an anchor in New York at what would become the Bronx Zoo, which he helped found in 1896 and then served as director for 30 years. He was also adept at collecting wealthy and powerful friends, enjoying the support of the wealthy industrialist Andrew Carnegie and a future president, Theodore Roosevelt.